Spooky Season IV is coming at some point this month (hopefully the Monday of Halloween week). Here’s another tasty tune for your spooky satisfaction.
Tag: music
SubscribeStar Saturday: Makeup Posts!
Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive. To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more. For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.
Yours portly has been woefully behind the past two weeks with posting SubscribeStar Saturday pieces, so I’ve got three for you today:
- A preview of Spooky Season IV, which releases later this month
- An overview of last week’s grueling Homecoming Week 2025
- Some reflections on education in 2025
Enjoy—and apologies again for the delays!
—TPP
To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.
Open Mic Adventures CLI: “Blue Ghost”
Spooky Season IV is coming out later this month, and I finally finished it last week. The first track I wrote for the album, “Blue Ghost,” is the feature of today’s Open Mic Adventures.
This piece is the companion piece to “Red Ghost,” which I featured last week. I like the contrasts between them.
October 2025 Bandcamp Friday!
Pickup my newest releases, Säx and Electrock III: Euroclydon, and Triple Deluxe! Spooky Season IV is coming soon, too!
Want to play the sax? Read my ultimate guide to getting started for under $350.
Wanna be utterly perplexed while laughing uproariously? Grab a copy of my first book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link, so I’ll receive a portion of any purchase made through that link, at no additional cost to you—plus I’ll get the book royalties).
Today is Bandcamp Friday, when Bandcamp doesn’t take it’s usual 15% cut of proceeds from sales. It’s a great time to purchase tunes from yours portly.
My latest EP, Säx, released last month, as did two full-length albums, Electrock III: Euroclydon and Triple Deluxe.
My full discography typically goes for $87.64. Considering it’s twenty-nine (29) releases, some of which are not available on streaming platforms, that’s pretty good—and just $3.02 per release!
Thanks for your support! And if you haven’t already, check out my YouTube series 31 Days of Halloween.
Happy Friday!
—TPP
TBT^16: Mahler’s Composing Shack
I’m slamming out Spooky Season IV, and it’s nowhere near as ingenious as the works of Gustav Mahler. But what I find so fascinating is how composers and other creative types work, especially when they’re trying to churn out major projects.
“Workflow” get tossed around a lot, but it really is remarkable to see how the most dedicated craftsmen and artists create a consistent and detailed schedule of daily habits and rituals. I especially love to learn about what they ate for breakfast—probably my favorite ritual of the day.
With that, here is 3 October 2024’s “TBT^4: Mahler’s Composing Shack“:
Open Mic Adventures CL: “Red Ghost”
Yours portly is hard at work on Spooky Season IV and it’s nearly done. I don’t have an official release date yet, but I hope to have it out by Halloween (preferably about a week before).
That said, here’s one of the pieces from the release, which features a number of colorful ghosts.
Phone it in Friday CV: YouTube Roundup CLXV: Hymns
For the first time in awhile, I have a proper, full-sized Phone it in Friday with three videos. It helps that I’ve been recording myself playing hymns a lot more.
Here are three recent videos of yours portly playing hymns; each is played on my maternal grandmother’s Kimball piano, which I had moved to the house this summer:
Open Mic Adventures CXLIX: “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”
Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I was not sure how to process the tragedy. I sat down at piano and decided to play some hymns.
As I flipped through my Cokesbury Worship Hymnal, I came upon “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” and decided to play it. The horrible assassination had already awoken thousands to Christ, and social media was abuzz with posts noting that individuals and/or their family members had a.) planned to attend to church on Sunday; b.) had purchased or planned to purchase and read Bibles; and c.) accepted Christ. It was clear that a powerful national revival was breaking out.
It was also a powerful reminder of how Christ Uses even the most wicked events to His Good. There is power in Jesus’ Name!
As such, I decided to add my voice to the outpouring of prayers for peace and salvation, and shared this brief piano performance of the piece.
Open Mic Adventures CXLVIII: “Funky Sax II”
Pickup my newest releases, Säx and Electrock III: Euroclydon! Get 50% off with promo code storm. That’s 50% off ANYTHING and EVERYTHING on my Bandcamp page, including the album, full discography purchases, merch, etc.!
Want to play the sax? Read my ultimate guide to getting started for under $350.
With even more apologies to Ponty—don’t worry, mate, I’ll have more shorts of me playing piano and hamming it up for the camera next week (I think)—I’m sharing an old original composition this week, “Funky Sax II” from Electrock III: Euroclydon (50% off with promo code “storm”). Like last week’s piece, I think this one dates back to Fall 2004, when I was in a saxophone sextet at the University of South Carolina.
I don’t have access to score for this piece anymore, but it’s either a saxophone quintet or sextet.
Midweek Preview of Coming Attractions
Pickup my newest releases, Säx and Electrock III: Euroclydon! Get 50% off with promo code storm. That’s 50% off ANYTHING and EVERYTHING on my Bandcamp page, including the album, full discography purchases, merch, etc.!
Want to play the sax? Read my ultimate guide to getting started for under $350.
As my grasping promo paragraphs suggest, yours portly has some new music out there, with Triple Deluxe releasing this Monday, 15 September on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms. I’m also currently working on Spooky Season IV, which is running a little behind schedule—gulp!
SSIV likely won’t be as long as SSIII, which clocked in at nearly forty-two minutes. But it will hopefully capture the fun, spooky, ghostly feel of Halloween.
My fiction writing has cooled considerably, but I did finish a draft of “Tap, Tap, Tap,” a creepy little short story about a telepathic beetle that feeds on human emotions; I’ll likely upload that as a PDF and/or in-body text for paid subscribers in the near future. I’m also working on a pulpy barbarian story, although I have not been putting in my daily quota of words in weeks.
Otherwise, I’ve been keeping busy with school. I’ve got two solid ensembles this year, and my Middle School Music Ensemble in particular has impressed me with their musicality. The High School Music Ensemble is doing well, too, tackling pieces like Supertramp’s “The Logical Song” (which features irregular phrasing of ten and then eleven measures) and Herbie Hancock’s fusion classic “Chameleon.”
As a bit a preview for SSIV, here’s the short piece “Red Ghost”:
I wrote the main theme in F major by hand, and it feels rather truncated. Inspiration struck, through, and I wrote a three-voice fugue section in D minor, which I think came out quite well.
More updates to come, dear readers. Thanks for your support!
Happy Wednesday!
—TPP
The Portly Politico 